Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 31 May 2018
192. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of the €117 million allocated to energy efficiency as outlined in budget 2018; the amount of the allocation that has been spent; the way in which the moneys were spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24220/18]
View answerThe National Development Plan (NDP) 2018 -2027 recognises that improving the energy efficiency of the built environment is a central plank of Ireland’s action on climate change. Energy efficiency will also realise benefits for air quality, health, social inclusion, business competitiveness and better public services, all of which will make a real and positive impact on people’s lives. Ireland’s White Paper on Energy Policy, Ireland's Transition to a Low Carbon Energy Future 2015-2030, National Mitigation Plan (NMP) and Long Term Renovation Strategy (LTRS) all recognise the fact that extensive renovation of our building stock will need to take place in order to meet both national and international targets for energy savings and emissions reduction by 2050. This must occur across all sectors.
I secured significant additional resources in Budget 2018 for energy efficiency investment. I allocated €117 million, of which €107m is capital, to the energy efficiency programmes to increasing energy efficiency across the residential, public and commercial sectors with a view to ramping up activity in order to address the ambition of the NDP. This represents an increase of over €50m since 2015 (or 34%). My Department works closely with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, who administer the energy efficiency programmes, to profile spend across all programmes for the year. The bulk of spend on energy efficiency programmes has historically taken place in the second half of the year and I would expect this to be the case this year as well.
My Department and the SEAI are also working to further encourage the uptake of the respective programmes by engaging with various stakeholders. An important element of this is SEAI’s new Behavioural Economics Unit which was established in 2017. Its focus is to better understand the motivations of key decision makers so policy interventions can take advantage of new communications insights. This Unit is already informing improved effective communication with target groups and has provided guidance to market players on how to more effectively communicate to decision makers the benefits of making more energy efficiency choices.
The spend to end April 2018 across these sectors is outlined below. Further spend has been approved but not yet paid out by SEAI.
|
Sector |
Capital Spend for 2018 to end April - (€m) |
|
Residential |
15.268 |
|
Commercial |
0.050 |
|
Public |
0.028 |
|
Total |
€15.346m |
